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Firefox web browserFirefox is the web browser that scared Microsoft into starting work on their Internet Explorer web browser again after five long years of painful silence. Firefox has the amazingly useful tabbed web browsing interface along with many other very imaginative innovations. Please visit our list of favorite Firefox add-ons to customize and enhance your Firefox browsing experience to exactly match your needs.

Full Circle MagazineA free, independent, magazine dedicated to the Ubuntu family of Linux operating systems. Each month, it contains helpful how-to articles and reader submitted stories.

Getting Started with Ubuntu e-book (from Ubuntu Manual Project)This comprehensive beginners guide to the Ubuntu operating system is written under an open source license (just like Ubuntu itself) and is free for you to download, read, modify and share. It covers everyday tasks with clear easy to follow instructions suitable for all levels of experience. If you want to help support the project, buy the book in print form.

HandBrakeHandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multi-platform, multithreaded video format transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows. It reads a wide variety of formats including Theora and writes Apple friendly formats suitable for iPod, iPhone, iPad and AppleTV.

Jahshaka Video Production SuiteJahshaka is a video and film compositing, editing and special FX system that uses OpenGL and OpenML hardware rendering to give operators real time interactivity. The system is cross platform, and also includes full CG, paint and image processing modules.

KompoZer Web AuthoringA free, open source web site design and maintenance program with a very nice WYSIWYG editor designed for the non-technical user. This makes it easy for almost anyone to create an attractive, professional-looking web site without needing to know any HTML.

LibreOffice (formerly OpenOffice.org)A wonderful alternative to high priced commercial office suites with a very active development community. It comes with useful additions like the ability to internally create PDF files without any special tools or licensing. If you are a long time Microsoft Office user and don't want to relearn a whole new user interface, then LibreOffice will feel nice and comfortable. The LibreOffice word processor is used exclusively to produce all of the IFX Group books.

LinuxMCEThis is a free Media Center Edition open source add-on to Ubuntu including a 10-foot user interface, complete whole-house media solution with personal video recorder, distributed media player, and the most advanced smart home solution available. It is stable, easy to use, and requires no knowledge of Linux and only basic computer skills. This is the quick way to roll your own Super-PVR.

Miro Internet TVImagine being able to download and watch video content in almost any format from all over the world. As television moves online, we face a crucial decision. Will it be open like the internet? Or will it be controlled by a small number of gatekeepers like cable and broadcast television? We think the answer should be obvious: let's make television more open and exciting than it's ever been.

OpenOffice.org PDF Import ExtensionThis OpenOffice.org extension opens PDF files for editing as text if they contain actual text and not just pictures of text. It can save loads of time for those that must use data sent in PDF format. Even though this is still classed as beta software, it already works for the more common format PDF files.

Plone Content Management SystemA complete web-based content management system (CMS) with security and an amazingly powerful and easy to control backend. This is very different from the typical hobby CMS (content management system) which is why governments, universities and major corporations all around the world are using Plone.

SME (E-Smith) ServerThe SME (formerly E-Smith) server and gateway is a customized Linux distribution based on Red Hat Linux. It can provide file (CIFS), print, mail (SMTP, POP3, IMAP, secure 128bit SSL webmail), Web (HTTP), proxy, VPN (PPTP, SSH), directory (LDAP) and DNS services and also function as a firewall. Extensions can easily add new features such as VOIP. It works and plays well with all versions of Windows including the newer versions of Windows that don't play well with older Windows versions.

ScribusReal desktop publishing power without the professional price tag. Scribus is an Open Source program that brings professional page layout to Linux/UNIX, Mac OS X, OS/2 Warp 4/eComStation and Windows desktops with a combination of press-ready output and new approaches to page design. Underneath a modern and user-friendly interface, Scribus supports professional publishing features such as color separations, CMYK and Spot Color support, ICC color management, and versatile PDF creation.

Thunderbird email clientThis is a high quality email program that rivals commercial programs costing hundreds of Dollars. It is made by the same people that created the Firefox web browser so it shares the same high performance HTML display technology and can use many of the same add-ons to customize and enhance your email experience to exactly match your needs.

Tight VNCIf you have a need to remote control computers across different operating systems (e.g. Linux, Mac, Windows) then VNC is a must-have tool. The TightVNC project adds some nice options and more compression to make working over slow links much less painful.

Ubuntu LinuxThe most popular desktop Linux for Microsoft Windows users with major version upgrades released twice a year. The Live CD can be used to test drive the full operating system and the included application programs like Firefox and OpenOffice.org on any computer before installing anything. This is the Linux chosen by Dell for their computers sold without Windows. If you like what you see, please pass on the good news and tell someone.

VMwareVMware has released free entry-level hardware emulation to Windows and Linux users. This allows you to create a virtual computer inside a window on your desktop and safely run a different operating system inside that window. Do you have old DOS and Windows 98 software that does not work on your new operating system? VMware lets you run them again even if you are using Linux as your primary operating system.

VirtualBoxA very powerful x86 virtualization product developed for Windows, Linux and Mac hosts. This is the fastest platform for running newer guest operating systems like Windows (2000 and newer), FreeBSD and Linux. Driver support for older operating systems made before 2000 is a little skimpy at this time. If in doubt, get VMware. If you need maximum speed, get VirtualBox.

WinFFWinFF is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multi-platform, multithreaded video format transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows. It reads and writes a wide variety of formats including Theora. This is a nice graphical interface over the very powerful FFMPEG video processing engine that lets you read and write an awesome number of video formats including very specialized packages like FLV (Flash video). If you work with video files, get this program first!

XBMCIf you want to see the next generation media center, check out the XBMC (formerly known as the Xbox Media Center) project that has grown up to run on different operating systems. This cross-platform program is a feature rich open-source media center with a nice active community driving the development. Take a look at the latest test version for a peek into the future.

dotMobile.us for Mac and LinuxEvery Apple customer with more than one Apple device (Mac, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, etc.) will eventually face the need for the Apple MobileMe (formerly known as .Mac) service along with the loss of privacy, limited storage and the annual fee it requires. The dotMobile.us project is an open source replacement you can run on any Mac or Linux machine on your local network or anywhere on the public Internet. It supports the same data synchronization used by any device or application that supports .Mac (iCal, Address Book, notes, etc.) all without any annual fees or bandwidth issues caused by sending all of your data to a server out on the Internet just to end up a few feet away on another device you own.

AppCleaner MacEven though uninstalling programs on the Apple Mac is amazingly simple compared to almost every other operating system, there are still things left behind after the uninstall. These can be tiny bits of settings and preferences or they can be huge supporting programs that are no longer needed on your system. The AppCleaner is an easy way to toss a program and all of the supporting files into the trash with one button. It is a very powerful tool to clean up old Macs and to keep new Macs squeaky clean.

Chicken VNC Viewer for Mac OS/XChicken is a VNC viewer for Mac OS/X version 10.4 and later. It is based on Chicken of the VNC which ended development in 2006. Major features include; works with VNC servers on any operating system, fullscreen mode with autoscrolling, keychain integration, configurable key bindings, mouse button emulation, and automatic server discovery via Bonjour so you don't have to type in the IP address of the server. In addition Chicken improves on Chicken of the VNC with; ability to cancel connections, better support for non-US keyboards, local cursor support, prompts for a password when the server requires one, ability to tint remote connections so they are visually different from your local desktop, and much more.

HandBrakeHandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multi-platform, multithreaded video format transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows. It reads a wide variety of formats including Theora and writes Apple friendly formats suitable for iPod, iPhone, iPad and AppleTV.

Jahshaka Video Production SuiteJahshaka is a video and film compositing, editing and special FX system that uses OpenGL and OpenML hardware rendering to give operators real time interactivity. The system is cross platform, and also includes full CG, paint and image processing modules.

KompoZer Web AuthoringA free, open source web site design and maintenance program with a very nice WYSIWYG editor designed for the non-technical user. This makes it easy for almost anyone to create an attractive, professional-looking web site without needing to know any HTML.

LibreOffice (formerly OpenOffice.org)A wonderful alternative to high priced commercial office suites with a very active development community. It comes with useful additions like the ability to internally create PDF files without any special tools or licensing. If you are a long time Microsoft Office user and don't want to relearn a whole new user interface, then LibreOffice will feel nice and comfortable. The LibreOffice word processor is used exclusively to produce all of the IFX Group books.

Miro Internet TVImagine being able to download and watch video content in almost any format from all over the world. As television moves online, we face a crucial decision. Will it be open like the internet? Or will it be controlled by a small number of gatekeepers like cable and broadcast television? We think the answer should be obvious: let's make television more open and exciting than it's ever been.

OpenOffice.org PDF Import ExtensionThis OpenOffice.org extension opens PDF files for editing as text if they contain actual text and not just pictures of text. It can save loads of time for those that must use data sent in PDF format. Even though this is still classed as beta software, it already works for the more common format PDF files.

Plex Media Center for OS/XTurn your Mac into a full featured media center able to show just about any video, audio or image content directly from any machine connected to your LAN. It has an easy to use extension structure so you can add feeds from all of the major online streaming media sites. It has a nice collection of dynamic skins with plenty of room for personalization. And it is all driven with your Apple remote or mouse.

ScribusReal desktop publishing power without the professional price tag. Scribus is an Open Source program that brings professional page layout to Linux/UNIX, Mac OS X, OS/2 Warp 4/eComStation and Windows desktops with a combination of press-ready output and new approaches to page design. Underneath a modern and user-friendly interface, Scribus supports professional publishing features such as color separations, CMYK and Spot Color support, ICC color management, and versatile PDF creation.

VirtualBoxA very powerful x86 virtualization product developed for Windows, Linux and Mac hosts. This is the fastest platform for running newer guest operating systems like Windows (2000 and newer), FreeBSD and Linux. Driver support for older operating systems made before 2000 is a little skimpy at this time. If in doubt, get VMware. If you need maximum speed, get VirtualBox.

WINE Builds for MacThe WINE (a recursive acronym for Wine Is Not Emulation) program allows Apple® Mac™ users to directly run some Microsoft® Windows™ programs without needing any virtual machine, Microsoft license or emulation. While this is far from a complete solution, the project is very active and improving all the time. When it works it is by far the best solution for Windows software compatibility. Also check out their WineBottler project that lets Mac users run pre-tested, tweaked and prepackaged Windows software without needing to install anything.

WinFFWinFF is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multi-platform, multithreaded video format transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows. It reads and writes a wide variety of formats including Theora. This is a nice graphical interface over the very powerful FFMPEG video processing engine that lets you read and write an awesome number of video formats including very specialized packages like FLV (Flash video). If you work with video files, get this program first!

XBMCIf you want to see the next generation media center, check out the XBMC (formerly known as the Xbox Media Center) project that has grown up to run on different operating systems. This cross-platform program is a feature rich open-source media center with a nice active community driving the development. Take a look at the latest test version for a peek into the future.

dotMobile.us for Mac and LinuxEvery Apple customer with more than one Apple device (Mac, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, etc.) will eventually face the need for the Apple MobileMe (formerly known as .Mac) service along with the loss of privacy, limited storage and the annual fee it requires. The dotMobile.us project is an open source replacement you can run on any Mac or Linux machine on your local network or anywhere on the public Internet. It supports the same data synchronization used by any device or application that supports .Mac (iCal, Address Book, notes, etc.) all without any annual fees or bandwidth issues caused by sending all of your data to a server out on the Internet just to end up a few feet away on another device you own.

7-ZipOne of the most compatible compression tools available. It reads and writes many different compression formats from many different operating systems, but the real strength is in the native 7z compression that is currently the smallest size possible for your data.

AVG Anti-Virus Free EditionEffective and relatively easy to control free Windows virus detection program. This includes active email scanning that does not create a proxy or require any changes to your email settings like some commercial virus scanning programs often do.

Belvedere Automated File ManagerAn automated tool to manage your Windows files based on your rules. This includes move, copy, delete, rename or open files based on name, extension, size, creation date and more.

CCleaner (Crap Cleaner)A tool to clean unwanted files from a Windows computer. This helps keep your hard drive from filling with left over and temporary files that just take up space and slow down your computer. Consider this essential maintenance for every Windows user.

DefragglerUnique among all Windows defragmentation tools, this allows you to defragment a whole disk, a single directory or just one file. It also has a much more interesting activity display much like the Windows 9x versions of defrag. Works with FAT32 and NTFS disk formats.

Firefox web browserFirefox is the web browser that scared Microsoft into starting work on their Internet Explorer web browser again after five long years of painful silence. Firefox has the amazingly useful tabbed web browsing interface along with many other very imaginative innovations. Please visit our list of favorite Firefox add-ons to customize and enhance your Firefox browsing experience to exactly match your needs.

HandBrakeHandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multi-platform, multithreaded video format transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows. It reads a wide variety of formats including Theora and writes Apple friendly formats suitable for iPod, iPhone, iPad and AppleTV.

ImgBurnA fast, lightweight optical disk burning tool that every Windows user must have. It is able to read and write a wide range of disk image formats to a wide range of physical disk formats (CD/DVD/HD DVD/Blu-ray). If you have an optical drive in your Windows computer, get this program.

IrfanViewQuite likely the most useful image viewing and management tool ever made for Microsoft Windows at any price. This freeware tool converts almost any image format into almost any other image format, copies, moves, resizes and optimizes images for web use, scans images from any TWAIN compliant device, shows thumbnails for a whole directory tree, creates alpha-blended slide shows, plays movies and sounds, and even has powerful batch processing. It is small, fast, active and well supported. Be sure to get both the IrfanView program and the PlugIns to support extra effects.

KompoZer Web AuthoringA free, open source web site design and maintenance program with a very nice WYSIWYG editor designed for the non-technical user. This makes it easy for almost anyone to create an attractive, professional-looking web site without needing to know any HTML.

LibreOffice (formerly OpenOffice.org)A wonderful alternative to high priced commercial office suites with a very active development community. It comes with useful additions like the ability to internally create PDF files without any special tools or licensing. If you are a long time Microsoft Office user and don't want to relearn a whole new user interface, then LibreOffice will feel nice and comfortable. The LibreOffice word processor is used exclusively to produce all of the IFX Group books.

Microsoft Office ODF PluginThe Open Document Format (ODF) Plugin for Microsoft Office gives users of Microsoft Office 2000 through 2007 (Word, Excel and PowerPoint) the ability to read, edit and save the ISO-standard Open Document Format. ODF has quickly become the official document standard used by governments, corporations and individuals all over the world. This is directly because the format is 100% published and identical in every word processor on every operating system. This is not true with Microsoft document formats which is what prompted the need for ODF in the first place. Don't be surprised if your document file sizes are much smaller and more efficient too!

Microsoft Office ViewersIf you must accept files from users and customers that think everyone has Microsoft Office or that everyone can open a Microsoft Office proprietary file, these viewers are for you. They only allow you to open Word, Excel, Access, Visio and PowerPoint files - not Publisher. If you have an older version of Microsoft Office there are also converters to make newer Office file formats available to you. Instead of going through the process of installing viewers and converters, we strongly suggest using an international standard document format (like plain text or ODF) whenever possible.

Miro Internet TVImagine being able to download and watch video content in almost any format from all over the world. As television moves online, we face a crucial decision. Will it be open like the internet? Or will it be controlled by a small number of gatekeepers like cable and broadcast television? We think the answer should be obvious: let's make television more open and exciting than it's ever been.

Notepad++A free upgrade for the Notepad built into Windows. This serves as a nice midway point between a plain text editor and a big (slow) word processor. It includes some advanced editing features to make it useful even for advanced users.

OpenOffice.org PDF Import ExtensionThis OpenOffice.org extension opens PDF files for editing as text if they contain actual text and not just pictures of text. It can save loads of time for those that must use data sent in PDF format. Even though this is still classed as beta software, it already works for the more common format PDF files.

Plone Content Management SystemA complete web-based content management system (CMS) with security and an amazingly powerful and easy to control backend. This is very different from the typical hobby CMS (content management system) which is why governments, universities and major corporations all around the world are using Plone.

ScribusReal desktop publishing power without the professional price tag. Scribus is an Open Source program that brings professional page layout to Linux/UNIX, Mac OS X, OS/2 Warp 4/eComStation and Windows desktops with a combination of press-ready output and new approaches to page design. Underneath a modern and user-friendly interface, Scribus supports professional publishing features such as color separations, CMYK and Spot Color support, ICC color management, and versatile PDF creation.

Thunderbird email clientThis is a high quality email program that rivals commercial programs costing hundreds of Dollars. It is made by the same people that created the Firefox web browser so it shares the same high performance HTML display technology and can use many of the same add-ons to customize and enhance your email experience to exactly match your needs.

Tight VNCIf you have a need to remote control computers across different operating systems (e.g. Linux, Mac, Windows) then VNC is a must-have tool. The TightVNC project adds some nice options and more compression to make working over slow links much less painful.

VMwareVMware has released free entry-level hardware emulation to Windows and Linux users. This allows you to create a virtual computer inside a window on your desktop and safely run a different operating system inside that window. Do you have old DOS and Windows 98 software that does not work on your new operating system? VMware lets you run them again even if you are using Linux as your primary operating system.

VirtualBoxA very powerful x86 virtualization product developed for Windows, Linux and Mac hosts. This is the fastest platform for running newer guest operating systems like Windows (2000 and newer), FreeBSD and Linux. Driver support for older operating systems made before 2000 is a little skimpy at this time. If in doubt, get VMware. If you need maximum speed, get VirtualBox.

WinFFWinFF is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multi-platform, multithreaded video format transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows. It reads and writes a wide variety of formats including Theora. This is a nice graphical interface over the very powerful FFMPEG video processing engine that lets you read and write an awesome number of video formats including very specialized packages like FLV (Flash video). If you work with video files, get this program first!

Workgroups For DOS (DOS networking client)Microsoft Workgroups for DOS client disks. These are used to give DOS machines limited access to Microsoft Windows or Samba file shares. Long file names are not supported with this client.

XBMCIf you want to see the next generation media center, check out the XBMC (formerly known as the Xbox Media Center) project that has grown up to run on different operating systems. This cross-platform program is a feature rich open-source media center with a nice active community driving the development. Take a look at the latest test version for a peek into the future.

4DOS OpenSourceOne of the most loved command line replacements/extensions to ever come out of the DOS world is the 4DOS program. This tool is now released as Open Source Software and has some nice bug fixes and new features every DOS user will be happy to have.

DOS Power UsersA site dedicated to getting the most out of DOS and other operating systems that still support DOS command line interfaces.

VMwareVMware has released free entry-level hardware emulation to Windows and Linux users. This allows you to create a virtual computer inside a window on your desktop and safely run a different operating system inside that window. Do you have old DOS and Windows 98 software that does not work on your new operating system? VMware lets you run them again even if you are using Linux as your primary operating system.

Workgroups For DOS (DOS networking client)Microsoft Workgroups for DOS client disks. These are used to give DOS machines limited access to Microsoft Windows or Samba file shares. Long file names are not supported with this client.

4DOS OpenSourceOne of the most loved command line replacements/extensions to ever come out of the DOS world is the 4DOS program. This tool is now released as Open Source Software and has some nice bug fixes and new features every DOS user will be happy to have.

7-ZipOne of the most compatible compression tools available. It reads and writes many different compression formats from many different operating systems, but the real strength is in the native 7z compression that is currently the smallest size possible for your data.

Belvedere Automated File ManagerAn automated tool to manage your Windows files based on your rules. This includes move, copy, delete, rename or open files based on name, extension, size, creation date and more.

Chicken VNC Viewer for Mac OS/XChicken is a VNC viewer for Mac OS/X version 10.4 and later. It is based on Chicken of the VNC which ended development in 2006. Major features include; works with VNC servers on any operating system, fullscreen mode with autoscrolling, keychain integration, configurable key bindings, mouse button emulation, and automatic server discovery via Bonjour so you don't have to type in the IP address of the server. In addition Chicken improves on Chicken of the VNC with; ability to cancel connections, better support for non-US keyboards, local cursor support, prompts for a password when the server requires one, ability to tint remote connections so they are visually different from your local desktop, and much more.

Denim Web Design ToolAn open source Java tool for rapidly designing and testing web sites before writing any HTML code. This has a very cool draw-and-go interface that allows anyone to sketch any kind of object including text, image placeholders and menus and almost instantly see them work. This allows the initial design meetings to be totally focused on identifying the site in terms of general content categories, organization, navigation and basic page layout without getting bogged down in the details of HTML, scripting and graphic design.

Firefox web browserFirefox is the web browser that scared Microsoft into starting work on their Internet Explorer web browser again after five long years of painful silence. Firefox has the amazingly useful tabbed web browsing interface along with many other very imaginative innovations. Please visit our list of favorite Firefox add-ons to customize and enhance your Firefox browsing experience to exactly match your needs.

Getting Started with Ubuntu e-book (from Ubuntu Manual Project)This comprehensive beginners guide to the Ubuntu operating system is written under an open source license (just like Ubuntu itself) and is free for you to download, read, modify and share. It covers everyday tasks with clear easy to follow instructions suitable for all levels of experience. If you want to help support the project, buy the book in print form.

HTML TidyA program to test and optionally clean almost any HTML file. This one program has become the cornerstone of the IFX Group tool set because it quickly locates and identifies syntax errors in web pages. Every web designer, web developer, web master, web manager needs this program. With regular use this can be a valuable teacher for all things HTML. Versions of this open source program are available for almost every modern operating system and also as a Firefox add-on to make it easy to test web pages as you browse.

HandBrakeHandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multi-platform, multithreaded video format transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows. It reads a wide variety of formats including Theora and writes Apple friendly formats suitable for iPod, iPhone, iPad and AppleTV.

Jahshaka Video Production SuiteJahshaka is a video and film compositing, editing and special FX system that uses OpenGL and OpenML hardware rendering to give operators real time interactivity. The system is cross platform, and also includes full CG, paint and image processing modules.

KompoZer Web AuthoringA free, open source web site design and maintenance program with a very nice WYSIWYG editor designed for the non-technical user. This makes it easy for almost anyone to create an attractive, professional-looking web site without needing to know any HTML.

LUA programming languageAn open source programming language designed to work in nearly every environment including web servers. It is most often embedded into games and other programs where small, flexible and fast scripting is required.

LibreOffice (formerly OpenOffice.org)A wonderful alternative to high priced commercial office suites with a very active development community. It comes with useful additions like the ability to internally create PDF files without any special tools or licensing. If you are a long time Microsoft Office user and don't want to relearn a whole new user interface, then LibreOffice will feel nice and comfortable. The LibreOffice word processor is used exclusively to produce all of the IFX Group books.

LinuxMCEThis is a free Media Center Edition open source add-on to Ubuntu including a 10-foot user interface, complete whole-house media solution with personal video recorder, distributed media player, and the most advanced smart home solution available. It is stable, easy to use, and requires no knowledge of Linux and only basic computer skills. This is the quick way to roll your own Super-PVR.

Notepad++A free upgrade for the Notepad built into Windows. This serves as a nice midway point between a plain text editor and a big (slow) word processor. It includes some advanced editing features to make it useful even for advanced users.

OpenOffice.org PDF Import ExtensionThis OpenOffice.org extension opens PDF files for editing as text if they contain actual text and not just pictures of text. It can save loads of time for those that must use data sent in PDF format. Even though this is still classed as beta software, it already works for the more common format PDF files.

Plex Media Center for OS/XTurn your Mac into a full featured media center able to show just about any video, audio or image content directly from any machine connected to your LAN. It has an easy to use extension structure so you can add feeds from all of the major online streaming media sites. It has a nice collection of dynamic skins with plenty of room for personalization. And it is all driven with your Apple remote or mouse.

Plone Content Management SystemA complete web-based content management system (CMS) with security and an amazingly powerful and easy to control backend. This is very different from the typical hobby CMS (content management system) which is why governments, universities and major corporations all around the world are using Plone.

ScribusReal desktop publishing power without the professional price tag. Scribus is an Open Source program that brings professional page layout to Linux/UNIX, Mac OS X, OS/2 Warp 4/eComStation and Windows desktops with a combination of press-ready output and new approaches to page design. Underneath a modern and user-friendly interface, Scribus supports professional publishing features such as color separations, CMYK and Spot Color support, ICC color management, and versatile PDF creation.

Thunderbird email clientThis is a high quality email program that rivals commercial programs costing hundreds of Dollars. It is made by the same people that created the Firefox web browser so it shares the same high performance HTML display technology and can use many of the same add-ons to customize and enhance your email experience to exactly match your needs.

Tight VNCIf you have a need to remote control computers across different operating systems (e.g. Linux, Mac, Windows) then VNC is a must-have tool. The TightVNC project adds some nice options and more compression to make working over slow links much less painful.

Ubuntu LinuxThe most popular desktop Linux for Microsoft Windows users with major version upgrades released twice a year. The Live CD can be used to test drive the full operating system and the included application programs like Firefox and OpenOffice.org on any computer before installing anything. This is the Linux chosen by Dell for their computers sold without Windows. If you like what you see, please pass on the good news and tell someone.

VirtualBoxA very powerful x86 virtualization product developed for Windows, Linux and Mac hosts. This is the fastest platform for running newer guest operating systems like Windows (2000 and newer), FreeBSD and Linux. Driver support for older operating systems made before 2000 is a little skimpy at this time. If in doubt, get VMware. If you need maximum speed, get VirtualBox.

WinFFWinFF is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multi-platform, multithreaded video format transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows. It reads and writes a wide variety of formats including Theora. This is a nice graphical interface over the very powerful FFMPEG video processing engine that lets you read and write an awesome number of video formats including very specialized packages like FLV (Flash video). If you work with video files, get this program first!

XBMCIf you want to see the next generation media center, check out the XBMC (formerly known as the Xbox Media Center) project that has grown up to run on different operating systems. This cross-platform program is a feature rich open-source media center with a nice active community driving the development. Take a look at the latest test version for a peek into the future.

dotMobile.us for Mac and LinuxEvery Apple customer with more than one Apple device (Mac, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, etc.) will eventually face the need for the Apple MobileMe (formerly known as .Mac) service along with the loss of privacy, limited storage and the annual fee it requires. The dotMobile.us project is an open source replacement you can run on any Mac or Linux machine on your local network or anywhere on the public Internet. It supports the same data synchronization used by any device or application that supports .Mac (iCal, Address Book, notes, etc.) all without any annual fees or bandwidth issues caused by sending all of your data to a server out on the Internet just to end up a few feet away on another device you own.

Gibson ResearchGibson Research offers free security checking tools and the amazing SpinRite program that rescues failing hard drives and prolongs the life of mission critical hard drives no matter what operating system or format is used on the drive.

IPAD Owners AssociationThe main web site for the IPAD Owners Association maintainers of the IPAD-OS that holds the amazing distinction of almost two decades on the public Internet without a single successful kernel hack. This is unrelated to the Apple iPad tablet device.

One Box SolutionA simple to use firewall and server collection with the unique proven un-hackable IPAD-OS operating system.

HTML TidyA program to test and optionally clean almost any HTML file. This one program has become the cornerstone of the IFX Group tool set because it quickly locates and identifies syntax errors in web pages. Every web designer, web developer, web master, web manager needs this program. With regular use this can be a valuable teacher for all things HTML. Versions of this open source program are available for almost every modern operating system and also as a Firefox add-on to make it easy to test web pages as you browse.

LUA programming languageAn open source programming language designed to work in nearly every environment including web servers. It is most often embedded into games and other programs where small, flexible and fast scripting is required.

PowerBasic, Inc.Many of the programs that the IFX Group releases to the public are written using these very powerful and very fast compilers. This is a software company that is obviously bucking the bloated software trend by creating highly optimized compilers that produce true stand-alone executables that do not need runtime (VBRUN, .NET, etc.) libraries. Please let them know you heard about them on the IFX Group web site.

Denim Web Design ToolAn open source Java tool for rapidly designing and testing web sites before writing any HTML code. This has a very cool draw-and-go interface that allows anyone to sketch any kind of object including text, image placeholders and menus and almost instantly see them work. This allows the initial design meetings to be totally focused on identifying the site in terms of general content categories, organization, navigation and basic page layout without getting bogged down in the details of HTML, scripting and graphic design.

Firefox web browserFirefox is the web browser that scared Microsoft into starting work on their Internet Explorer web browser again after five long years of painful silence. Firefox has the amazingly useful tabbed web browsing interface along with many other very imaginative innovations. Please visit our list of favorite Firefox add-ons to customize and enhance your Firefox browsing experience to exactly match your needs.

Freeplay MusicHundreds of MP3 files that you can hear right away without paying anything. Most are designed for web broadcasting, but licensing is available for just about any need you have. All are free for personal use.

HTML TidyA program to test and optionally clean almost any HTML file. This one program has become the cornerstone of the IFX Group tool set because it quickly locates and identifies syntax errors in web pages. Every web designer, web developer, web master, web manager needs this program. With regular use this can be a valuable teacher for all things HTML. Versions of this open source program are available for almost every modern operating system and also as a Firefox add-on to make it easy to test web pages as you browse.

KompoZer Web AuthoringA free, open source web site design and maintenance program with a very nice WYSIWYG editor designed for the non-technical user. This makes it easy for almost anyone to create an attractive, professional-looking web site without needing to know any HTML.

Plone Content Management SystemA complete web-based content management system (CMS) with security and an amazingly powerful and easy to control backend. This is very different from the typical hobby CMS (content management system) which is why governments, universities and major corporations all around the world are using Plone.

Thunderbird email clientThis is a high quality email program that rivals commercial programs costing hundreds of Dollars. It is made by the same people that created the Firefox web browser so it shares the same high performance HTML display technology and can use many of the same add-ons to customize and enhance your email experience to exactly match your needs.

URL BlacklistA commercially managed URL blacklist service that can be used for free to protect your users from Internet evils.

Web Market ShareThis allows you to see trends in market share for web browsers and operating systems. This is interesting for most web developers, but should always be taken with the proverbial grain of salt because Microsoft Internet Explorer is the only web browser in the list that does not have the ability to appear to be a different web browser on a different operating system.

Gibson ResearchGibson Research offers free security checking tools and the amazing SpinRite program that rescues failing hard drives and prolongs the life of mission critical hard drives no matter what operating system or format is used on the drive.

HTML TidyA program to test and optionally clean almost any HTML file. This one program has become the cornerstone of the IFX Group tool set because it quickly locates and identifies syntax errors in web pages. Every web designer, web developer, web master, web manager needs this program. With regular use this can be a valuable teacher for all things HTML. Versions of this open source program are available for almost every modern operating system and also as a Firefox add-on to make it easy to test web pages as you browse.

IPAD Owners AssociationThe main web site for the IPAD Owners Association maintainers of the IPAD-OS that holds the amazing distinction of almost two decades on the public Internet without a single successful kernel hack. This is unrelated to the Apple iPad tablet device.

More Cool StuffIntriguing observable science originally designed for children, but still interesting to the rest of us.

One Box SolutionA simple to use firewall and server collection with the unique proven un-hackable IPAD-OS operating system.

PowerBasic, Inc.Many of the programs that the IFX Group releases to the public are written using these very powerful and very fast compilers. This is a software company that is obviously bucking the bloated software trend by creating highly optimized compilers that produce true stand-alone executables that do not need runtime (VBRUN, .NET, etc.) libraries. Please let them know you heard about them on the IFX Group web site.

Tom's Hardware GuideA good place to find out about the latest advancements in hardware for personal computers and consumer electronics.

GSA Auctions.govGeneral Services Administration government site for auctions. Note that this web site blocks all users that do not have Javascript enabled. It is very strongly suggested to use Firefox with the NoScript plugin to enable temporary Javascript.

7-ZipOne of the most compatible compression tools available. It reads and writes many different compression formats from many different operating systems, but the real strength is in the native 7z compression that is currently the smallest size possible for your data.

AVG Anti-Virus Free EditionEffective and relatively easy to control free Windows virus detection program. This includes active email scanning that does not create a proxy or require any changes to your email settings like some commercial virus scanning programs often do.

AppCleaner MacEven though uninstalling programs on the Apple Mac is amazingly simple compared to almost every other operating system, there are still things left behind after the uninstall. These can be tiny bits of settings and preferences or they can be huge supporting programs that are no longer needed on your system. The AppCleaner is an easy way to toss a program and all of the supporting files into the trash with one button. It is a very powerful tool to clean up old Macs and to keep new Macs squeaky clean.

Belvedere Automated File ManagerAn automated tool to manage your Windows files based on your rules. This includes move, copy, delete, rename or open files based on name, extension, size, creation date and more.

CCleaner (Crap Cleaner)A tool to clean unwanted files from a Windows computer. This helps keep your hard drive from filling with left over and temporary files that just take up space and slow down your computer. Consider this essential maintenance for every Windows user.

Cut Out HungerAn effective way to save money at the grocery store for free.

DOS Power UsersA site dedicated to getting the most out of DOS and other operating systems that still support DOS command line interfaces.

DefragglerUnique among all Windows defragmentation tools, this allows you to defragment a whole disk, a single directory or just one file. It also has a much more interesting activity display much like the Windows 9x versions of defrag. Works with FAT32 and NTFS disk formats.

Denim Web Design ToolAn open source Java tool for rapidly designing and testing web sites before writing any HTML code. This has a very cool draw-and-go interface that allows anyone to sketch any kind of object including text, image placeholders and menus and almost instantly see them work. This allows the initial design meetings to be totally focused on identifying the site in terms of general content categories, organization, navigation and basic page layout without getting bogged down in the details of HTML, scripting and graphic design.

Firefox web browserFirefox is the web browser that scared Microsoft into starting work on their Internet Explorer web browser again after five long years of painful silence. Firefox has the amazingly useful tabbed web browsing interface along with many other very imaginative innovations. Please visit our list of favorite Firefox add-ons to customize and enhance your Firefox browsing experience to exactly match your needs.

Freeplay MusicHundreds of MP3 files that you can hear right away without paying anything. Most are designed for web broadcasting, but licensing is available for just about any need you have. All are free for personal use.

Full Circle MagazineA free, independent, magazine dedicated to the Ubuntu family of Linux operating systems. Each month, it contains helpful how-to articles and reader submitted stories.

Getting Started with Ubuntu e-book (from Ubuntu Manual Project)This comprehensive beginners guide to the Ubuntu operating system is written under an open source license (just like Ubuntu itself) and is free for you to download, read, modify and share. It covers everyday tasks with clear easy to follow instructions suitable for all levels of experience. If you want to help support the project, buy the book in print form.

HTML TidyA program to test and optionally clean almost any HTML file. This one program has become the cornerstone of the IFX Group tool set because it quickly locates and identifies syntax errors in web pages. Every web designer, web developer, web master, web manager needs this program. With regular use this can be a valuable teacher for all things HTML. Versions of this open source program are available for almost every modern operating system and also as a Firefox add-on to make it easy to test web pages as you browse.

HandBrakeHandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multi-platform, multithreaded video format transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows. It reads a wide variety of formats including Theora and writes Apple friendly formats suitable for iPod, iPhone, iPad and AppleTV.

ImgBurnA fast, lightweight optical disk burning tool that every Windows user must have. It is able to read and write a wide range of disk image formats to a wide range of physical disk formats (CD/DVD/HD DVD/Blu-ray). If you have an optical drive in your Windows computer, get this program.

IrfanViewQuite likely the most useful image viewing and management tool ever made for Microsoft Windows at any price. This freeware tool converts almost any image format into almost any other image format, copies, moves, resizes and optimizes images for web use, scans images from any TWAIN compliant device, shows thumbnails for a whole directory tree, creates alpha-blended slide shows, plays movies and sounds, and even has powerful batch processing. It is small, fast, active and well supported. Be sure to get both the IrfanView program and the PlugIns to support extra effects.

Jahshaka Video Production SuiteJahshaka is a video and film compositing, editing and special FX system that uses OpenGL and OpenML hardware rendering to give operators real time interactivity. The system is cross platform, and also includes full CG, paint and image processing modules.

KompoZer Web AuthoringA free, open source web site design and maintenance program with a very nice WYSIWYG editor designed for the non-technical user. This makes it easy for almost anyone to create an attractive, professional-looking web site without needing to know any HTML.

LibreOffice (formerly OpenOffice.org)A wonderful alternative to high priced commercial office suites with a very active development community. It comes with useful additions like the ability to internally create PDF files without any special tools or licensing. If you are a long time Microsoft Office user and don't want to relearn a whole new user interface, then LibreOffice will feel nice and comfortable. The LibreOffice word processor is used exclusively to produce all of the IFX Group books.

Microsoft Office ODF PluginThe Open Document Format (ODF) Plugin for Microsoft Office gives users of Microsoft Office 2000 through 2007 (Word, Excel and PowerPoint) the ability to read, edit and save the ISO-standard Open Document Format. ODF has quickly become the official document standard used by governments, corporations and individuals all over the world. This is directly because the format is 100% published and identical in every word processor on every operating system. This is not true with Microsoft document formats which is what prompted the need for ODF in the first place. Don't be surprised if your document file sizes are much smaller and more efficient too!

Microsoft Office ViewersIf you must accept files from users and customers that think everyone has Microsoft Office or that everyone can open a Microsoft Office proprietary file, these viewers are for you. They only allow you to open Word, Excel, Access, Visio and PowerPoint files - not Publisher. If you have an older version of Microsoft Office there are also converters to make newer Office file formats available to you. Instead of going through the process of installing viewers and converters, we strongly suggest using an international standard document format (like plain text or ODF) whenever possible.

Miro Internet TVImagine being able to download and watch video content in almost any format from all over the world. As television moves online, we face a crucial decision. Will it be open like the internet? Or will it be controlled by a small number of gatekeepers like cable and broadcast television? We think the answer should be obvious: let's make television more open and exciting than it's ever been.

Notepad++A free upgrade for the Notepad built into Windows. This serves as a nice midway point between a plain text editor and a big (slow) word processor. It includes some advanced editing features to make it useful even for advanced users.

OpenOffice.org PDF Import ExtensionThis OpenOffice.org extension opens PDF files for editing as text if they contain actual text and not just pictures of text. It can save loads of time for those that must use data sent in PDF format. Even though this is still classed as beta software, it already works for the more common format PDF files.

Plex Media Center for OS/XTurn your Mac into a full featured media center able to show just about any video, audio or image content directly from any machine connected to your LAN. It has an easy to use extension structure so you can add feeds from all of the major online streaming media sites. It has a nice collection of dynamic skins with plenty of room for personalization. And it is all driven with your Apple remote or mouse.

RoadChef CuisineA collection of recipes, hints and tips for cooking in small recreational vehicles and campers that do not have ovens. The collection is constantly growing with surprisingly easy to make and tasty food.

SME (E-Smith) ServerThe SME (formerly E-Smith) server and gateway is a customized Linux distribution based on Red Hat Linux. It can provide file (CIFS), print, mail (SMTP, POP3, IMAP, secure 128bit SSL webmail), Web (HTTP), proxy, VPN (PPTP, SSH), directory (LDAP) and DNS services and also function as a firewall. Extensions can easily add new features such as VOIP. It works and plays well with all versions of Windows including the newer versions of Windows that don't play well with older Windows versions.

ScribusReal desktop publishing power without the professional price tag. Scribus is an Open Source program that brings professional page layout to Linux/UNIX, Mac OS X, OS/2 Warp 4/eComStation and Windows desktops with a combination of press-ready output and new approaches to page design. Underneath a modern and user-friendly interface, Scribus supports professional publishing features such as color separations, CMYK and Spot Color support, ICC color management, and versatile PDF creation.

Thunderbird email clientThis is a high quality email program that rivals commercial programs costing hundreds of Dollars. It is made by the same people that created the Firefox web browser so it shares the same high performance HTML display technology and can use many of the same add-ons to customize and enhance your email experience to exactly match your needs.

Tight VNCIf you have a need to remote control computers across different operating systems (e.g. Linux, Mac, Windows) then VNC is a must-have tool. The TightVNC project adds some nice options and more compression to make working over slow links much less painful.

URL BlacklistA commercially managed URL blacklist service that can be used for free to protect your users from Internet evils.

Ubuntu LinuxThe most popular desktop Linux for Microsoft Windows users with major version upgrades released twice a year. The Live CD can be used to test drive the full operating system and the included application programs like Firefox and OpenOffice.org on any computer before installing anything. This is the Linux chosen by Dell for their computers sold without Windows. If you like what you see, please pass on the good news and tell someone.

VMwareVMware has released free entry-level hardware emulation to Windows and Linux users. This allows you to create a virtual computer inside a window on your desktop and safely run a different operating system inside that window. Do you have old DOS and Windows 98 software that does not work on your new operating system? VMware lets you run them again even if you are using Linux as your primary operating system.

WinFFWinFF is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multi-platform, multithreaded video format transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows. It reads and writes a wide variety of formats including Theora. This is a nice graphical interface over the very powerful FFMPEG video processing engine that lets you read and write an awesome number of video formats including very specialized packages like FLV (Flash video). If you work with video files, get this program first!

XBMCIf you want to see the next generation media center, check out the XBMC (formerly known as the Xbox Media Center) project that has grown up to run on different operating systems. This cross-platform program is a feature rich open-source media center with a nice active community driving the development. Take a look at the latest test version for a peek into the future.

dotMobile.us for Mac and LinuxEvery Apple customer with more than one Apple device (Mac, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, etc.) will eventually face the need for the Apple MobileMe (formerly known as .Mac) service along with the loss of privacy, limited storage and the annual fee it requires. The dotMobile.us project is an open source replacement you can run on any Mac or Linux machine on your local network or anywhere on the public Internet. It supports the same data synchronization used by any device or application that supports .Mac (iCal, Address Book, notes, etc.) all without any annual fees or bandwidth issues caused by sending all of your data to a server out on the Internet just to end up a few feet away on another device you own.